Trafika Europe 5 - Slovenian Interlude

evening and the yellow street lights lining my path came on. The trees, the drizzle, the shiny cobbles, the man I pictured standing on top of the hill watching me walk away from him step by step gave me vertigo. I nearly turned around to shout “forever and forever, farewell, Brutus”! And now is another wet day, 10 years on, by the Irish Sea. The streets of Howth have transformed into canals with murky rainwater gushing through. The sky is coming thundering down, changing quickly from ash grey to slate. People are closing their windows, running to their cars, scurrying up and down the narrow streets under their umbrellas. I am walking away once again, this time from an older and kinder man standing outside a shamrock-green pub behind me on Abbey Street. At the end of that cobbled path in Istanbul, I had turned towards the Bosphorus. The traffic was building up, people out of their offices starting to queue at bus-stops anxious to beat the rush hour. The drizzle was turning into a downpour and for some reason I was not wearing tights. I remember my legs getting cold and wet. I walked faster, the click of my heels now swallowed by the noise of the city. More and more people in the streets as I got closer to the sea. I had to slow down a few times, pushing suited men and office girls out of my way, emanating anger thick as grape molasses. I needed to get to the waterfront. I needed to get there fast and breathe. Breathe in the clouds, the spray, the screams of seagulls. The nightfall.

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